DND Adventure Idea : The Art of War

PCs must stop a conquering horde and their leader from destroying a good kingdom. The PCs must bring down an advanced force led by an Elite General.

Their foe has wrote the book on warfare, however. The adversary has spies and saboteurs spread throughout the good kingdom, ready to begin a shadow campaign that could cause the good kingdom to crumble before it has time to mobilize.

Soon, heroes begin to learn their enemy knows more about them than they could believe. Now, they must do the same against this awesome rival. The heroes must unearthe everything they can on this unseen master of war.

Once they know their enemy, the heroes must begin planning for war. Understanding their enemy allows them to plan to defend against his best strategems. The heroes organize the good kingdoms defense, and wait for an opening.

Once an opening presents itself, the heroes must attack, and rain down fury against the Master of War.

Hooray for Second Coming

It is bizarre given that I'm writing praise for an event title that I have consciously chosen not to spend money on. I refuse to endorse, monetarily, any more X-Men books that feature Sentinels, or allusions to Days of Future Past/Present/etc. That last time I enjoyed a story featuring these over used mechanoid fun suckers was Operation: Zero Tolerance, only because it assumed the rest of the world of Marvel does, in fact, exist in the same world as the X-Men. Other heroes (okay, just Spider-Man) were drawn into such an inherently unfair conflict as U.S. Government sanctioning of genocide.

I give Second Coming praise for only a few reasons. I praise it for acknowledging this, in its own way. Bastion HAD to isolate San Francisco from the rest of the world because, yeah, the rest of the Marvel Heroes would be forced to deal with this issue. X-Factor covered it perfectly, too. I want to desperately believe that with the end of Second Coming that the stories of Sentinels and futures where robots hunt mutants are finished. In fact, I want to believe that with the end of Second COming most of Claremont's influence on the team has begun to fizzle out.

I honestly want to see the new adjectiveless X-Men succeed, and not just because I consider Victor Gischler a friend of the now dead show. I am not going to pretend that the X-Men shouldn't serve the niche they have for themselves, and that's as representations of minorities and discrimination in this country. However, I would like to see variety in the stories, and the upcoming vampire arc is certainly headed in the right direction. Instead of the minority fighting against the majority, lets go ahead and two dfferent minorities fight each other.

Since Claremont's "Days of Future..." the X-Men have been stuck in a world with pre-WWII sensibilities towards minorities. I hope that we can at least move them into the civil rights era, in terms of the problems mutants in Marvel will have to face. Then again, with Utopia being what it is, a tiny nation off of the bay in San Francisco, perhaps we'll get some stories that are allegories for African Genocide/Yugoslavia. That'll at least get their problems coinciding with the times.

You Wouldn't Expect It...

But I am still quite alive. However, The Popmedia Primecast is not. So, Me and Dusty have decided to part ways creatively. If you would think about it, though, getting 6 months out of a hour and a half long commercial radio show with 45-60 minutes of content devoted to the comic book medium on AM radio in South louisiana is a hell of a feat. Hooray for me.

Now, It is on to othr things. Writing more, specifically. I'm making a check list right now.
1-Write on this damn blog
2-Go to Lafayette "Drink and Draws" and mingle with the artists.
3-Get adventures published for D&D 4th Edition
4-Write a novel
5-Write for Marvel

Prince of Power #1

Cho is a legacy character, in a sense. It is presented in this book he is the inheriter of the role Hercules played in the Marvel U. Cho stands apart from most legacy characters because his skill and power set are so different from his heroic mentor. He has a great chance of seperating himself from his heroic mentor and becoming a unique hero. This isn't a legacy charcater who is just a change in personality from his mentor, such as Wally West and Dick Grayson. Cho is drasticly different from Hercules, but the mission statement for the character remains the same. A whole new space of storytelling is opening up to fill this role of fighter of mythological monsters.

The book moves at a break neck speed, which is good. Events moved from a fight with The Griffin, to Banner's work to locate Hercules, to Vali's plan to work towards god-hood. Each story has its own unique undertones and threads laid out that will, hopefully, intersect with each other before the series finishes up. The Griffin fight lays out a larger story of the impending appearance of the Chaos King. The work by Banner features a second story about the quest to find Hercules, and Vali's plan to attain godhood is a third arc that will, most likely, require Cho to visit, and anger, several pantheons over the course of the series. The art is gorgeous, and I wish I could enjoy it more without the purple information boxes. For some reason those things are irritating to me.

Finally, there is an everpresent undertone of the gods vs man . In the Chaos King story Athena leaves a message for Cho that Mankind should learn to depend on themselves rather than look tot he gods for help in their monumental battles. In the Quest for Hercules story, as Cho is talkign to Delphyne, the Gorgon, she is reading a book titled "How to Kill a God"while Cho voices suspicions of trusting Athena, and there is the rise of Godhodd story, which was started through Vali Halflings desire to raise mortals into godhood because of the gods' indifference to their mortal followers. There is, also, an intersting scene where people donate goods to help the Norse Gods after the events of Siege. It is a nice juxtaposition of how mortals look to the gods and help them after reading Athena's and Vali's speeches on the relations of mortals to the gods. Artistically, this is a juxtaposition to an earlier panel regarding the horrors the god's have bestowed upon the world. War, Destruction, and the "kindness" of the one day only free health clinic.

This is a great book, all around. Cho has the personality of a self-assured teenager, and reminds me of some of my most problematic A students, as a teacher. The heavy mythological lean of the book is right up my alley and I'll be returning again to continue reading this series next month.

Siege 4

I truly hate becoming a comic nerd, but, after 2.5 solid issues of work (I refuse to consider the 1st half of Siege #1 as being good), Bendis just dropped the ball on the ending of this book.

Two scenes effectively sink this book. First, we have the Loki begging Odin for strength scene. This does a lot to undercut Loki's machinations that have been present throughout Kieron Gillen's run of Thor and the Siege: Loki one shot. I get that Loki can shrug off being killed. That was the point of his dealings in Siege: Loki. I have a problem with the sincerity he displays in his astonishment at the destructive power of The Sentry. There's no reason for Loki to not be sincere in thoughts. So you have to assume that those thoughts he has are true. He is not vocalizing them. He's not trying to hide from mind readers. These are presented as true feelings that Loki is experiencing, at that moment. In that moment Bendis completely castrates everything we knew of Loki over the past few months. It's great Loki took back the Norn stones because he certainly acts like he lost his stones in these first few pages.

Most of the fight we get against The Void is solid. The Avengers, powered up by Norn Stones, Asgard's "Power Thirst", try to beat up The Void. Not working. Iron Man drops a Helicarrier on The Void. Not working. Its building up to the point where something awesome needs to happen to beat The Void, and we get Thor calling down a Lightning bolt on him. Which he tried doing, to little effect, at the beginning of the fight. This doesnt look like Bendis running out of ideas, this smells more like the page count was gettign too high for the fight and needed to be wrapped up, quickly. Again, The Sentry lost the fight because the page count was going up!

Lets also remember how many times the damn guy DIED in Dark Avengers! And he stays down from that? And being dumped into the sun? Wasn't the BIG SCARY thing about the man that he was unbeatable because his molecules were under conplete control of his will, ever if he died? Didn't he have the equivalent of a molecular healing factor? WHY THE HELL IS A LIGHTNING BOLT BEATING HIM?!

Throw in a 10 page epilogue to this story and we end Marvels great crossover with a pretty pathetic whimper.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight 8

I am constantly amazed Moon Knight has his own series.

This week was a fairly light week for me in comics. I only picked up 8 books. While I, normally, gush glowingly about titles such as Batman and Robin, Spider-Man: Fever, and Amazing Spider-Man, I found this book to be my favorite one of the week. It is not that it is as innovative or potentially exciting as the three books mentioned previously, but it was an enjoyable read and concluded a story. I like having endings in books.

So this story is, essentially, a 22 page epilogue to the McGuffin of the contract killing on a Russian Mobster. Deadpool was hired to kill this man. Moon Knight was not going to let that happen. Moon Knight runs off to dismantle the man's operation himself. By page 5 that whole thing is wrapped up. Then we get a 13 page throw down of Moon Knight and Deadpool for, really, no reason, now. Deadpool is a synonym, in story, for the illogical, so fighing for no reason at all is right up his alley. The other 4 pages? Well, the lady that hired Deadpool decides to be more proactive in her mission to kill the Russian mobster after the Merc with the Mouth fails to do the job.

iZombie 1

Witness that I do not just read Marvel comics or Green Lantern tie in books.

A problem that can plague #1 issues is the writer attempts to set something up in the issue rather than provide anything dynamic in the book. What is great about this book is that, while it is a set-up piece, at $1 for the book, it is a cheap entry way into the world of Supernatural Eugene, Oregon.

Boy does this book set up the world too. We get our protagonist, Gwen, her best friend Ellie, their 3rd wheel hangeron Spot, the Vampire paintball ref, and some monster hunters. Nobody is really doing anything in this issue except establishing themselves and what their role is in the book. They are all interesting characters. I'm excited for these people. But, again, this issue is just meant to set up the world. I suspect issue #2 will be where some action will begin.

Now, for the real critiquing. While this book was good, I'm sure we don't need to wait until story page 20 to find out Gwen is a zombie nor story pages 21-22 to find out what the purpose of the book is. What is most frustrating about this, though, is that 18-22 were the previews of the damn book. Your big reveal is not clever if the last 5 pages of your comic were the preview of your book in just about every DC comic printed over the past month. That makes you a giant waste of my time. Why the hell can we not get these five pages as the beginning of the story, and then the next 17 is Gwen and the gang solving the mystery of the murdered man? Can the reader not be introduced to them over the course of an investigation? I hate asking rhetorical questions because these should not be asked. There is no reason to hide the fact Gwen is a zombie until page 20 if everyone who has seen an advertisement for the book already knows this.

Now, on the plus side, Allred's art is beautiful. It is interesting to see a zombie rendered in his pop-style art work and how the fact that there is a zombie rendered in this way can expand on the possabilities of zombies in a person's eyes. While Roberson has changed the myth of the zombie slightly to suit this book, Allred's work on the physical appearance of the zombie does the same, and for the better. It is not as if Zombies haven been featured in comics before.

*cough*Marvel Zombies

However, I cannot remember a recent comic that uses zombies in this fashion. Bravo to the creative team of Roberson and Allred for that.